Jc Beall is known for defending modest dialetheism; this is the view that there are dialetheia, but only in the form of “spandrels” arising otherwise reasonable semantic terminology (e.g., the Liar paradox). Beall also regards his view as modest in partaking of a deflationary view of truth, a view where ‘true’ is a device of disquotational inference which expresses no “substantive property.” Beall supports deflationism by an appeal to Ockham’s razor; however, the premise that ‘true’ is fundamentally disquotational is found (...) dubious. Nonetheless, we can craft an ultra-modest dialetheism which assumes only that at least one utterance of ‘This sentence is not true’ uses ‘true’ as a disquotational device, and maintains neturality on whether it expresses a substantive property. The limited scope of the ultra-modest view will be disappointing to formal semanticists hoping to capture the behavior of ‘true’ throughout the language. But its modest basis gives dialetheism the best hope for wider acceptance in the discipline. (shrink)

Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these (...) theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert. (shrink)

Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse explores the roles of stories, figures, dreams, theories, facts, delusions, advertising, institutions, economic arrangements, publishing practices, scientific advances, and politics in twentieth- century technoscience. The book's title is an e-mail address. With it, Haraway locates herself and her readers in a sprawling net of associations more far-flung than the Internet. The address is not a cozy home. There is no innocent place to stand in the world where the book's author figure, FemaleMan, encounters DuPont's controversial laboratory rodent, OncoMouse. (...) Haraway sees the world of contemporary technoscience as a drama. Information sciences and life sciences are at the center of the dramatic action. Scenes are set in landscapes where maps of human genetic differences are stored in databases, racialized bodies are reconfigured by morphing for photographs in popular magazines, and transgenic mice important to breast cancer research are patented intellectual property. The actors are many, and not all are human. Beginning with the Modest Witness, the key figure in the Science Revolution, Haraway shows us the trouble lurking in race and gender- marked practices for attesting to matters of fact. In later scenes, Haraway explores the kinship relations among the many cyborg creatures produced in the late twentieth-century--in nuclear research, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, computer-mediated representational practices, and mutations in biological approaches to "race.". (shrink)

Modest Infinitism -/- Jeremy Fantl -/- Abstract -/- Infinitism, a theory of justification most recently developed and defended by Peter Klein, is the view that justification is a matter of having an infinite series of non-repeating reasons for a proposition. I argue that infinitism is preferable to other theories (like foundationalism) in that only infinitism can plausibly account for two important features of justification: 1) that it admits of degrees and 2) that a concept of complete justification makes sense.

Evidentialism is the view that subjects should believe neither more than nor contrary to what their current evidence supports. I will critically present two arguments for the view. A common source of resistance to evidentialism is that there are intuitive cases where subjects should believe contrary to their evidence. I will present modest evidentialism as the view that subjects should believe in accord with what their evidence supports, but that this norm may be overridden under certain conditions. As such, a (...) modest evidentialismaccommodates the intuitions behind a good deal of traditional anti-evidentialism. (shrink)

The Cratylus’ main concern is to outline and evaluate the competing views of language held by two characters, Hermogenes and Cratylus, who disagree about whether convention or nature (respectively) are the source of onomastic correctness. Hermogenes has been thought to hold two radically different views by different scholars, one extreme conventionalism whereby all names are correct relative to their speakers, and another modest conventionalism according to which distinct naming actions – establishment and employment – explain why some names are correct (...) and others are not, depending on the speaker. In this paper I argue that, though Hermogenes ultimately endorses a conventionalism of the latter kind, it is a mistake to assign him this position from the outset. Rather, to understand the structure of the conversation about conventionalism, we must view Hermogenes’ position, and Socrates’ understanding of it, as developing instead of settled. For it is only by discussing the matter that Hermogenes comes to express a moderate conventionalist view and Socrates comes to appreciate the position Hermogenes actually holds. (shrink)

Many have claimed that whenever an investigation might provide evidence for a claim, it might also provide evidence against it. Similarly, many have claimed that your credence should never be on the edge of the range of credences that you think might be rational. Surprisingly, both of these principles imply that you cannot rationally be modest: you cannot be uncertain what the rational opinions are.

The author defends nonconceptualism, the claim that perceptual experience is nonconceptual and has nonconceptual content. Continuing the heated and complex debate surrounding this topic over the past two decades, she offers a sustained defense of a novel version of the view, Modest Nonconceptualism, and provides a systematic overview of some of the central controversies in the debate. -/- An explication of the notion of nonconceptual content and a distinction between nonconceptualist views of different strengths starts off the volume, then the (...) author goes on to defend participants in the debate over nonconceptual content against the allegation that their failure to distinguish between a state view and a content view of (non)conceptualism leads to fatal problems for their views. Next, she makes a case for nonconceptualism by refining some of the central arguments for the view, such as the arguments from fineness of grain, from contradictory contents, from animal and infant perception, and from concept acquisition. Then, two central objections against nonconceptualism are rebutted in a novel way: the epistemological objection and the objection from objectivity. -/- Modest Nonconceptualism allows for perceptual experiences to involve some conceptual elements. It emphasizes the relevance of concept employment for an understanding of conceptual and nonconceptual mental states and identifies the nonconceptual content of experience with scenario content. It insists on the possibility of genuine content-bearing perceptual experience without concept possession and is thus in line with the Autonomy Thesis. Finally, it includes an account of perceptual justification that relies on the external contents of experience and belief, yet is compatible with epistemological internalism. -/- . (shrink)

Is moral responsibility essentially historical? Consider two agents qualitatively identical with respect to all of their nonhistorical properties just prior to the act of A-ing. Is it possible that, due only to differences in their respective histories, when each A-s only one A-s freely and is morally responsible for doing so? Nonhistorical theorists say “no.” Historical theorists say “yes.” Elsewhere, I have argued on behalf of philosophers like Harry G. Frankfurt that nonhistorical theorists can resist the historical theorists’ case against (...) them, and that, therefore, a nonhistorical thesis remains a live option. Nevertheless, I have remained officially agnostic in this debate, as I acknowledge the pull of the competing considerations speaking on behalf of each view. In what follows, I turn from defending the nonhistorical position to fashioning a new historical theory, a relatively modest one that captures what is especially gripping about the kinds of examples that seem to commend an historical conclusion. (shrink)

A modest solution to the problem(s) of rule-following is defended against Kripkensteinian scepticism about meaning. Even though parts of it generalise to other concepts, the theory as a whole applies to response-dependent concepts only. It is argued that the finiteness problem is not nearly as pressing for such concepts as it may be for some other kinds of concepts. Furthermore, the modest theory uses a notion of justification as sensitivity to countervailing conditions in order to solve the justification problem. Finally, (...) in order to solve the normativity problem, it relies on substantial specifications of normal conditions such as those that have been proposed by Crispin Wright and Mark Johnston, rather than on Philip Pettit's functionalist specification. This theory is modest in that it does not meet the demands of Kripke's sceptic in full. Arguments are provided as to why this is not needed. (shrink)

This paper examines libertarian accounts that appeal to event causation but avoid appeal to agent causation. Such views are modest in their metaphysical commitments and may be modest, as well, in what they promise. It is argued that an action-centered version should be preferred; on such a view, indeterminism is required in the direct production of decision or other action. Although a view of this kind does not improve on compatibilist accounts when it comes to moral responsibility, they may be (...) preferable in other respects. (shrink)

In this article the author reviews the recent exchange in this Journal between David Dyzenhaus and Matthew Kramer on the merits of legal positivism. He then offers his own modest proposal regarding future debates on that topic.

Arguments are weakly meta-argumentative when they call attention to themselves and purport to be successful as arguments. Arguments are strongly metaargumentative when they take arguments (themselves or other arguments) as objects for evaluation, clarification, or improvement and explicitly use concepts of argument analysis for the task. The ambitious meta-argumentation thesis is that all argumentation is weakly argumentative. The modest meta-argumentation thesis is that there are unique instances of strongly meta-argumentative argument. Here, we show how the two theses are connected and (...) both are plausible. (shrink)

Kantian transcendental arguments are aimed at uncovering the necessary conditions for the possibility of thought and experience. If such arguments are to have any force against Cartesian skepticism about knowledge of the external world, then it would seem that the conditions the transcendental argument uncovers must be non-psychological in nature, and their special status must be knowable a priori. In "Transcendental Arguments", Barry Stroud raised the question whether there are any such conditions., He answered that it was very doubtful that (...) one could argue deductively from the premise that there is thought and experience to the conclusion that certain conditions concerning non-psychological, external reality are satisfied. In the intervening 27 years, no one has decisively answered those doubts. No one has succeeded in constructing a convincing Kantian anti- skeptical transcendental argument of the desired kind. In a recent paper, however, Stroud has suggested that things might well be looking up a bit for the transcendental arguer. Stroud now holds that there is a modest variant of the ambitious Kantian anti-skeptical strategy that offers the promise of an answer of sorts to the skeptic that is free of various objectionable Kantian excesses. In this paper, I will describe the more modest sort of transcendental argument that Stroud finds promising, and I will then raise some doubts about the prospects of this modest approach. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to present and evaluate one version of the deflationary attitude to truth, namely the Modest Account, propounded by Wolfgang Künne in his Conceptions of Truth (2003). I introduce the deflationary theories of truth in the first part of my paper and present briefly the views of a more familiar deflationist, Paul Horwich, as a "stepping-stone" to Künne's account. In the second part of the paper I give an overview of Künne's theory and in the (...) final part I present a dilemma that his account faces: either it is not modest after all or it is incomprehensible. (shrink)

Orthodox Probabilists hold that an inquirer ought to harbor a precise degree of confidence in each hypothesis about which she is concerned. Modest Probabilism is one of a family doctrines inspired by the thought that Orthodox Probabilists are thereby demanding that an inquirer effect a precision that is often unwarranted by her evidence. The purpose of this essay is (i) to explain the particular way in which Modest Probabilism answers to this thought, and (ii) to address an alleged counterexample to (...) Modest Probabilism meant to offer proof that Modest Probabilism is no better than its orthodox predecessor at avoiding unwarranted precision. (shrink)

Recent attempts to explain why modesty should be considered a virtue have failed. A more adequate account is that modesty involves understanding how far one's accomplishments ought to be taken as definitive of one's value. Modest people communicate this self-understanding through behaviour motivated by the desire to ensure that their accomplishments do not cause pain to others. This virtuous mode of self-awareness involves recognizing that one is both defined by social standards of success and irreducible to these assessments. Modest agents (...) do not think themselves ‘better’ than others, but recognize that they rank higher on the particular social standard in question. They thus both avoid causing pain and serve as exemplars of virtuous self-responsibility. (shrink)

Philosophers have understood propositional contents in many different ways, some of them imposing stricter demands on cognition than others. In this paper, I want to characterize a specific sub-type of propositional content that shares many core features with full-blown propositional contents while lacking others. I will call them modest propositional contents, and I will be especially interested in examining which behavioral patterns would justify their attribution to non-human animals. To accomplish these tasks, I will begin by contrasting modest propositional contents (...) with primitive feature-placing contents: a kind of content that, according to some philosophers, can explain the behavior of non-human animals. I will examine which cognitive abilities are involved in having mental states with each of these contents and which sorts of behavioral patterns would provide evidence that an animal has one of them or another. Finally, I will present some empirical evidence which strongly suggests that some non-human animals have mental states with modest propositional contents. (shrink)

The long-term health of business ethics is suspect. In particular, there are some troubling trends within the discipline’s methodology that should be closely monitored and, in some cases, countered. Furthermore, business ethicists and management theorists should take some steps to make business ethics more robust and more relevant to actual business practice. Part 1 of this article argues that, while the dominance of the social science approach should be curtailed, relations between normative and empirical scholars need not be hostile; on (...) the contrary, there are some modest ways in which the two approaches could complement each other more than they have to date. Part 2 examines why business ethics needs more systems thinking. Part 3 explores why business ethicists in general should follow the lead of some of our colleagues who are engaging in powerful and influential research with direct and immediate practical applications. The article closes with a few modest suggestions for enhancing business ethics theorizing and provides some concrete ways for scholars to become more involved with business practitioners and business practice and to learn from the latter in ways that can productively feed research streams. (shrink)

This article addresses the art of living in a technological culture as the active engagement with technomoral change. It argues that this engagement does not just take the form of overt deliberation. It shows in more modest ways as reflection-in-action, an experimental process in which new technology is fitted into existing practices. In this process challenged values are re-articulated in pragmatic solutions to the problem of working with new technology. This art of working with technology is also modest in the (...) sense that it is not oriented to shaping one’s own subjectivity in relation to technology. It emanates from human existence as relational and aims at securing good relationships. The argument will be developed in relation to a case study of the ways in which homecare workers engaged with the value of privacy, challenged by tele-monitoring technology that was newly introduced into their work. (shrink)

What is the relation between small-scale collaborative plans and the execution of those plans within interactive contexts? I argue here that joint attention has a key role in explaining how shared plans and shared intentions are executed in interactive contexts. Within singular action, attention plays the functional role of enabling intentional action to be guided by a prior intention. Within interactive joint action, it is joint attention, I argue, that plays a similar functional role of enabling the agents to act (...) in a collaborative way such that their actions are rationally guided by a prior shared intention. This understanding of joint attention – as having a key functional role of enabling the rational guidance of joint intentional action by a prior shared intention – allows for an alternative understanding of the kind of minimal cooperation that infants can engage in. On this understanding, infants’ capacity to engage in joint actions is already an incipient capacity to engage in rational and intentional joint actions, albeit a capacity that is necessarily scaffolded by an adult rational co-partner. (shrink)

Modest Nonconceptualism: Epistemology, Phenomenology, and Content. By Schmidt Eva.

A central claim in Michael Bratman’s account of shared agency is that there need be no radical conceptual, metaphysical or normative discontinuity between robust forms of small-scale shared intentional agency, i.e., modest sociality, and individual planning agency. What I propose to do is consider another potential discontinuity, whose existence would throw doubt on his contention that the structure of a robust form of modest sociality is entirely continuous with structures at work in individual planning agency. My main point will be (...) that he may be wrong in assuming that the basic cognitive infrastructure sufficient to support individual agency doesn’t have to be supplemented in significant ways to support shared agency. (shrink)

Social sciences face a well-known problem, which is an instance of a general problem faced as well by psychological and biological sciences: the problem of establishing their legitimate existence alongside physics. This, as will become clear, is a problem in metaphysics. I will show how a new account of structural explanations, put forward by Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit, which is designed to solve this metaphysical problem with social sciences in mind, fails to treat the problem in any importantly new (...) way. Then I will propose a more modest approach, and show how it does not deserve the criticism directed at a prototype by Jackson and Pettit. (shrink)

Realism as an explanatory theory of science (faded realism) is not convincing. However, neither "internal realism" nor instrumentalism are plausible. Assuming common sense realism a non-explanatory form of scientific realism (modest realism) can be defended. Modest realism has affinities with Fine's NOA. To NOA it adds a descriptive thesis about scientific progress towards truth or verisimilitude. In addition it adds a concern with purely philosophical issues which arise in reflections on the nature of science. However, there is little to say (...) about truth over and above what is conveyed by Tarski/Davidson semantics. (shrink)

Intractable disagreement among philosophers is ubiquitous. An implication of such disagreement is that many philosophers hold false philosophical beliefs (i.e. at most only one party to a dispute can be right). Suppose that we distribute philosophers along a spectrum arranged from philosophers with mostly true philosophical beliefs on one end (high‐reliability), to those with mostly false philosophical beliefs on the other (low‐reliability), and everyone else somewhere in‐between (call this is the reliability spectrum). It is hard to see how philosophers could (...) accurately locate themselves on the reliability spectrum; they are prima facie as well positioned as their peers with respect to philosophical matters (call this the placement problem). In this paper, I argue that the reliability spectrum and placement problem lend support to modest meta‐philosophical skepticism: we have a pro tanto (but not an all‐things‐considered) reason to withhold ascent to philosophical claims. (shrink)

Decoupling a modestly construed Narrative Self Shaping Hypothesis from Strong Narrativism this paper attempts to motivate devoting our intellectual energies to the former. Section one briefly introduces the notions of self-shaping and rehearses reasons for thinking that self-shaping, in a suitably tame form, is, at least to some extent, simply unavoidable for reflective beings. It is against this background that the basic commitments of a modest Narrative Self-Shaping Hypothesis are articulated. Section two identifies a foundational commitment—the central tenet—of all Strong (...) Narrativist proposals, those that posit a necessary link between narrative self-shaping and narrative self-experience. As will be shown, in the hands of Strong Narrativists the latter notion is unpacked in stronger or weaker ways by appeal to the notion of implicit Narrativizing. Section three reminds the reader of Strawson’s challenge to Strong Narrativism. It is revealed that Strawson’s objections are most effective if they target Strong Narrativism’s central tenet construed as a phenomenological revelation about what is necessary for self-experience and not merely the psychological Narrativity thesis, construed as an empirical hypothesis about typical Narrativizing proclivities. Having set the stage, section four critically examines two different strategies, pursued by Rudd and Schechtman respectively, for escaping the horns Strawson’s dilemma poses for Strong Narrativism. In the end both strategies invoke the notion of implicit Narrativizing at a crucial juncture. Section five reveals that a substantive proposal about what implicit Narrativizing might be is lacking, hence we have no reason to believe that it actually occurs. It is concluded that, as things stand, Strong Narrativism has no way of avoiding the horns of Strawson’s dilemma. Brief concluding remarks in the final section are a reminder why, despite their modesty, softer versions of the NSSH—when coupled with a developmental proposal about the narrative basis of our folk psychological competence—are non-trivial and worthy of further development and investigation. (shrink)

We argue that Brette's arguments, or some variation on them, work only against the immodest codes imputed by neuroscientists to the signals they study; they do not tell against “modest” codes, which may be learned by neurons themselves. Still, caution is warranted: modest neural codes likely lead to only modest explanatory gains.

In “A Modest Proposal: Accounting for the Virtuousness of Modesty,” Irene McMullin characterizes the modest person as striking a delicate balance between accurate self-assessment and sensitivity to the feelings of others. She criticizes ‘egalitarian’ understandings of this process as unrealistically demanding, and instead proposes an account based on Sartrean facticity and self-awareness. In this brief comment, I defend the egalitarian accounts, arguing for a specifically Kantian explanation of modesty that combines the best of both the egalitarian and Sartrean views, and (...) is based on basic Kantian concepts of dignity and autonomy. On this account, the modest person honestly assesses her own successes according to her autonomously determined standards, yet exhibits modesty to others out of the recognition of the equal worth and dignity of all persons. (shrink)

Social sciences face a well-known problem, which is an instance of a general problem faced as well by psychological and biological sciences: the problem of establishing their legitimate existence alongside physics. This, as will become clear, is a problem in metaphysics. I will show how a new account of structural explanations, put forward by Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit, which is designed to solve this metaphysical problem with social sciences in mind, fails to treat the problem in any importantly new (...) way. Then I will propose a more modest approach, and show how it does not deserve the criticism directed at a prototype by Jackson and Pettit. (shrink)

In their recent “A modest defense of manifestationalism” (2015), Asay and Bordner defend this position from a quite famous criticism put forward by Rosen (1994), according to which while manifestationalism can be seen as more compatible with the letter of empiricism than other popular stances, such as constructive empiricism, it fails nonetheless to make sense of science. The two authors reckon that Rosen’s argument is actually flawed. In their view, manifestationalism could in fact represent a legitimate thesis about the nature (...) of scientific inquiry. In this paper, I will show that Asay and Bordner’s criticisms to Rosen are actually off target. Moreover, they rest upon an understanding of what the aim of science is that might serve to their purposes, but that does not seem to be in line with the scientific enterprise. Perhaps constructive empiricism still represents the best compromise so far presented between strict empiricism and the acknowledgment of the rationality of science. (shrink)

Cases involving clandestine manipulation pose a significant challenge to compatibilist conceptions of free will. But compatibilists often argue that they are not alone and that modest libertarian conceptions of free will are also susceptible to the problem. I take issue with this claim. I argue that agent‐causal libertarian views are not susceptible to the problem. I then argue that the compatibilist cannot cite a relevant difference between agent‐causal libertarian views and modest libertarian views. Therefore from a compatibilist's perspective modest libertarian (...) views are impervious to the problem of clandestine manipulation. (shrink)

What do words have to do with the world? Do our concepts make the world the way it is for us? If concepts do make the world what it is for us, is this making complete, without residue of a natural world, and how does this making occur? Is there a real world to which word and concepts refer that anchors their meaning? What is the role of the imagination in making words have meaning? Is understanding embodied, conceptual, or both? (...) A Modest Realism explores these questions through its examination of the foundations of articulatable experience. It joins language and experience in a non-essentialist realism, while avoiding the non sequiturs and practical impossibilities of most twentieth century postmodern philosophers. (shrink)

Molinism, which says that God has middle knowledge, offers one of the most impressive and popular ways of combining libertarian creaturely freedom with full providential control by God. The aim of this paper is to explain, motivate, and defend a heretofore overlooked version of Molinism that I call ‘Modest Molinism’. In Section 1, I explain Modest Molinism and make an initial case for it. Then, in Sections 2 and 3, I defend Modest Molinism against Dean Zimmerman’s anti-Molinist argument, which is (...) directed at all versions of Molinism, including Modest Molinism. Zimmerman’s anti-Molinist argument combines two distinct and separable challenges to Molinism that I call the ‘Irrelevance Objection’ and the ‘Extreme Manipulation Objection’. Despite the fact that Zimmerman intertwines these two objections, they require separate treatment. Thus, Section 2 will raise concerns about Zimmerman’s Irrelevance Objection and Section 3 will focus on concerns about Zimmerman’s Extreme Manipulation Objection. (shrink)

Deontologism in epistemology holds that epistemic justification may be understood in terms of “deontological” sentences about what one ought to believe or is permitted to believe, or what one deserves praise for believing, or in some similar way. If deonotologism is true, and people have justified beliefs, then the deontological sentences can be true. However, some say, these deontological sentences can be true only if people have a kind of freedom or control over their beliefs that they do not in (...) fact have. Thus, deontologism in epistemology, combined with anti-skepticism, has implausible implications. I first describe one sort of control that people typically have over ordinary actions but do not have over typical beliefs. I then argue that there is a paradigmatic type of epistemic evaluation that does properly apply to beliefs even though we lack this sort of control over them. Finally, I argue that these paradigmatic epistemic evaluations are sufficient to make true some of the deontological sentences. (shrink)

Democratic speech is not the altogether orchestrated and well-regulated affair that deliberative democrats and others describe it as being or capable of becoming. In democratic speech we encounter not only oases of genuine public deliberation but rhetoric, desire, struggle, will to power, mythology, and communicative incompetence. All of this is no less of the essence of democratic speech than its nobler aspect and is found everywhere that democratic institutions exist or have ever existed. This modest phenomenology undertakes a broad and (...) impressionistic account of democratic discourse, highlighting themes that are at once fundamental and largely unremarked. My aims in doing so are both critical and reconstructive: the critical aim is to expose the unreality of democratic idealism in both its theoretical and popular manifestations, while the reconstructive aim is to sketch the outline of a democratic ontology in which speech holds center stage. If speech is the lifeblood of democratic politics, we shall misunderstand our own democratic commitment for as long as we misconceive the real workings, dynamics, and conditions of democratic speech. I shall argue that the rhetorical dimension of political speech is not a contingency, but belongs to its fundamental structure. (shrink)

In response to the growing social discontent at what is perceived as generational injustice, due to younger generations of voters facing long-term negative consequences from issues disproportionately decided by the votes of older generations of voters, there have been suggestions to introduce an upper age voting threshold. These have been all but universally dismissed as offensive and contrary to basic democratic values. In the present article, I show that the idea is in fact entirely consonant with present-day democratic practices and (...) far from without a precedent. Hence, I describe how the aforementioned generational injustice can be rectified using a simple vote weighting scheme which is easy to implement and interpret. Lastly, I discuss the societal effects that this alteration of the voting system would have on the distribution of the origins of political power. (shrink)

A response to critics, Douglas Patterson and Mark Textor, on Künne's modest theory of truth in *Conceptions of Truth*.

In the growing literature on decision-making under moral uncertainty, a number of skeptics have argued that there is an insuperable barrier to rational "hedging" for the risk of moral error, namely the apparent incomparability of moral reasons given by rival theories like Kantianism and utilitarianism. Various general theories of intertheoretic value comparison have been proposed to meet this objection, but each suffers from apparently fatal flaws. In this paper, I propose a more modest approach that aims to identify classes of (...) moral theories that share common principles strong enough to establish bases for intertheoretic comparison. I show that, contra the claims of skeptics, there are often rationally perspicuous grounds for precise, quantitative value comparisons within such classes. In light of this fact, I argue, the existence of some apparent incomparabilities between widely divergent moral theories cannot serve as a general argument against hedging for one's moral uncertainties. (shrink)

First para: Before the 17th century, there was not much discussion, and little uniformity in conception, of natural laws. The rise of science in 17th century, Newton’s mathematization of physics, and the provision of strict, deterministic laws that applied equally to the heavens and to the terrestrial realm had a profound impact in transforming the philosophical imagination. A philosophical conception of physical law built on the example of Newtonian Mechanics became quickly entrenched. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, there was (...) a great deal of philosophical interest in probabilities, but probabilities were mostly regarded as having something to do with the management of opinion, not as having a fundamental role in science. Probabilities made their first appearance in an evidently ineliminable way in the laws of a fundamental theory with the advent of quantum mechanics. Quantum probabilities have come to be called ‘chances’ in the philosophical literature, and their interpretation has been one of the central problems in philosophy of science now for almost a century. There continue to be hold-outs that insist that there must be an underlying probability-free replacement for quantum mechanics and Bohmians have had some success in formulating a deterministic alternative to quantum mechanics, but most physicists accept that the probabilistic character of the quantum mechanical laws is likely to be retained in any successor theory. While physics has adjusted itself comfortably to the existence of ineliminably probabilistic laws, philosophy has not managed arrive at a stable interpretation of quantum probability. The difficulty is that there are a number of constraints that an interpretation of chance must satisfy, constraints that appear to be partially definitive of the concept and it proves to be extraordinarily difficult to meet them simultaneously. (shrink)

Here I reply to the main points raised by the commentators on the arguments put forward in my Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (OUP, 2009). My response is aimed at defending a modest doxastic account of clinical delusions, and is articulated in three sections. First, I consider the view that delusions are inbetween perceptual and doxastic states, defended by Jacob Hohwy and Vivek Rajan, and the view that delusions are failed attempts at believing or not-quitebeliefs, proposed by Eric Schwitzgebel and (...) Maura Tumulty. Then, I address the relationship between the doxastic account of delusions and the role, nature, and prospects of folk psychology, which is discussed by Dominic Murphy, Keith Frankish, and Maura Tumulty in their contributions. In the final remarks, I turn to the continuity thesis and suggest that, although there are important differences between clinical delusions and non-pathological beliefs, these differences cannot be characterised satisfactorily in epistemic terms. (shrink)